A journal of the restoration of a really, really old house in northern Burgundy.

Monday, March 30, 2009

The Color of A House

Sometimes it seems like everything associated with this house is complicated. The latest issue is the question of the color we should paint the house -- not the rooms, but the house's facade.

We have been thinking about this ever since we bought the house, and for years thought we'd have a very, very pale blue house. It seemed that this was the original color of the house and we wanted to restore it to it's original state. But now we realize that the house wasn't blue, as none of the houses in the village (or surrounding area) are blue, and the houses that we thought were blue are actually light gray with pale blue shutters -- the color of the shutters gives the houses their bluish tint.

Our neighbors, having had 4 years to get used to us, now actually speak to us on the street, and lately have been dropping hints about what color we should paint the house. They appear worried that we're going to paint it an odd city-folk color, like hot pink or electric purple. They don't have to worry -- we are actually limited by local law to a certain range colors that are typical of the region.

We have a palette produced by the department (which I guess would be the 'county' in the U.S.) and have been going over and over these colors for months now without resolution. Dawg has become fixated upon a sort of muted orangish-yellow color (peach?), and my obsession remains with having a bluish house, which translates into light gray. In the end, we decided to ask for four samples: (i) Dawg's peach color, (ii) my light gray, (iii) beige, (iv) a very pale pinkish-beige. The painter - who is actually part of the same outfit that did all our stonework - agree to paint a square foot of each these samples on the side of the house by the time we visited next.

We arrived last Thursday, curious to see what our four choices would look like. The painter/macon proudly informed us that he gave us six options instead of four. Here they are:

What's that you say? The image is too small? You can't tell the difference? Okay, here are some close-ups:

Still can't tell the difference? We couldn't either. Which one is peach? Beige? Gray? And why'd he even bother throwing in two "extra colors"? To me, they're all cement-colored with a smidgen of red mixed in.

The painter/macon gave us a long explanation about why he could only get these colors, something about the paint looking different in small samples rather than large. I don't know. What I do know is that if we paint the house the wrong color, it will ruin all our efforts to maintain the original character of the house. There have been missteps with the house, yes, but all on the interior; stuff most people wouldn't notice. If the exterior of the house is the wrong color, though...(shuddering) it will be VERY upsetting.

Seeing that we were completely baffled, the painter/macon brought us a different palette, and told us he could reproduce these colors with more accuracy. Not sure why -- I think he's using a different kind of paint. Anyway, we selected colors similar to the ones we chose before.

I'm really afraid to see what he comes up with this time.

Anyway, I'll leave you with pictures of some other houses in our village. If you have an opinion about a particular color, don't hesitate to let me know!

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